Where do you prefer to set-up?

[Sailfish]

Assume you don't have a food plot or feeder, just access to land (any land) whats your best bet that "guarantee's" you a good chance at a deer?
 
Do you set up over "freeways"? A scrape? Edge of a well visited field? Bedding area? I'm sure there are multiple scenario's, conditions, etc that can come into play. Just wondering what you feel is your money spot.
 
 
I like near a bedding area off one of their routes.

[DeerCamp]

i would like to say i would go anywhere, where i gun hunt. im going to get a buck no matter what. however, id say id fine some thick areas with trees with a bedding area close bye. id make sure there was a few good scrapes and rubs in the area as well. but if i couldnt do that id just fine a good clump of trees right by where its sorta thick, ive found the big bucks where i hunt go through that and into the open feild. i thought this was kinda strange of them to go into the feild cuz its state land but the big ones ive seen do it have no prob... so anyway thicket by a feild... gezz the more i think about it the more things that come to my mind .haha

[Woods Walker]

I have found over the years that most of the time there is no one good spot that's good for all conditions.
 
An astute hunter must get to know his area as well, if not better than the deer that he's hunting there. Wind, weather, food sources, hunting pressure, and other factors all come into play. A stand that might be a great bow stand in October, can be dead cold in November, and vice versa.
 
HOWEVER:
 
In the 28 years I've been hunting in Illinois, I have found two stand sites, that for our firearm deer season, are as close as one can get to a "guarantee" in a wild/fair chase hunt.
 
Not only will you have a shot at a buck, if you don't shoot the first one that you see, you may very well have a shot at a BIG buck. These ARE gun stands. Yes, you may have the shot at twenty yards, and you may have it at 120 (or more) yards. Both of these stands DEMAND that you come PREPARED for any weather condition, and also to stay put ALL DAY FROM DARK UNTIL DARK.
 
Your shot may come at ANY time during legal shooting hours.
 
What these two locations have in common, is that they are geographically located in the center of a "hub" of deer travel zones. They are both located on the high point of the farms they are on, and any deer that crosses (from ANY direction) in front of these stands is but a few jumps to less than 200 yards from going from one drainage with heavy cover to another.
 
We discovered these almost by accident, as there is NOT a whole lot of sign around them, but we kept noticing that we always seemed to see mature bucks within 100 yards of these two spots.
 
One of them is 400 yards from the old farmhouse that serves as our deer "camp". The first few years that we hunted there, we never gave the spot a second look. But then several years running I'd killed a deer opening morning on the bluff on the other side of the farm, and was back at the house cleaning up my knives and such in the kitchen sink, and I'd see a buck that I'd crawl 50 miles though pig poop to have a shot at from the kitchen sink window!  EVERY ONE of them crossed within 50 yards of this spot!
 
Well....it didn't take us long to put a ladder stand there!
 
Not every place has one of these "hubs", but when you do find one, you've got yourself a gem.

[msbadger]

If some one just plopped me down on a piece of land and said hunt? ...Well I'd spend a little time checking wind direction and then look for one of these places....high side of the mouth of a gully...inside corner of 2 hedge rows...high side overlooking a food source...like and old orchard...berry patch.ect. ect.....

[Sailfish]

Ha, you said it much better than I "Plopped you down and said hunt" that was the best way to put it.
 
 
 
There is a "hub" where I gun hunt. Sadly it is not on our property. I have a couple of the corridors and a bedding area  that lead to it, but not the hub [:@]
 
Those two fella's that set up near it do well every year. This hub is in the middle of the forest.

[gunther89]

If i had to hunt somewhere i would choose to hunt in a creek bottom.  During the rut bucks will spend time searching areas and somewhere along the way have to have water.  I hunt an area where there is a spring that runs all the time and has a thick bedding area near it and a large patch of white oaks as well.  Bucks and does will use this area for feeding and bedding.

[danesdad]

I'm certainly no expert, but I'd look to hunt somewhere where the "flow" of deer traffic is narrowed, like a fencerow or narrow strip of woods.  As far as sign goes, I'd look for a rub line.  While it doesn't guarantee anything, it would seem to dictate that at least one buck passed thru on that path several times previously.  Proximity to water is good too.
 
I've had a few (precious few) spots where I could count on seeing deer every year and I and my family have taken some deer there every year, but as time goes on, conditions change (I own almost no land myself) and a spot can be good for ten years or more, then get cold.
 
I'd have to say, if you see deer in a place more than a few times, that's the place to try because they use that place for a reason.

[bowhuntersrave]

I mostly bowhunt. I look for saddles and funnels to set up my treestands. If I am going to hunt a field or food plot that I have never hunted before. I look for a well used entrance trail and set up 20 to 30 yards from the field edge. Once the deer are in the field it has been my experience that deer seem to now the magic yardage to keep them safe.
If I am just plopped in the middle of the woods, I like to set up on the up wind side of ridges that have alot of structure on them with oaks or beeches as a food source.

[gard73]

I would look for a spot where at least two trails intersect and sit along that somewhere depending on your weapon

[mag30079]

I know the text book answer would be a primary scrape, but I've only seen one primary scrape and I found it by accident. I was following some fresh tracks through some very thick area, so thick that I was on my hands and knees at one point. I hunt mostly funnels, pinch points and inside corners. I used to hunt this hedge row that ran in an L pattern connecting two chunks of woods but last year the farmer thought that extra 10 -12 feet was needed for more crops and took it out. Also any water sourse I also like to set up on.